


Hot Wheels

by IrenkaFeralKitty



Series: Oh, Were O Were [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: X-Wing Series - Aaron Allston & Michael Stackpole
Genre: Coronavirus, Gen, M/M, Quarantine, Stay-at-home order, hot wheels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:26:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23889691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrenkaFeralKitty/pseuds/IrenkaFeralKitty
Summary: The quarantining wasn’t really hurting them, just driving them a bit crazier. They were taking care of each other and that was what mattered.
Relationships: Tycho Celchu/Corran Horn
Series: Oh, Were O Were [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1176797
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	Hot Wheels

_ They were beasts, creatures of the night. Cursed to transform under the light of the full moon. Mortals feared even rumors of them, huddling… fearfully [UGH]… in their homes at night lest they encounter one of the dark beasts [??? BJDWO SOMETHING DIFFERENT] of the night- _

“Wes, fucking come inside already!”

Teeth clenching for a few moments, Corran hunched further down on the couch, fingers freezing over the glowing screen of his smartphone. 

“Stop playing with the damned hot wheels and turn the patio light off already! We’re trying to watch a movie.”

Tycho started to shake next to him, holding back laughter while Hobbie yelled at Wes from the back door. Being locked inside the house with Wes for over a month has shredded the taller man’s normal tolerance for their packmate’s antics to almost nothing.

From nearby, muffled, tinny sound of music playing through a set of earbuds grew louder. Wedge’s jaw was set as he determinedly ignored the ongoing argument and kept scrolling through Facebook.

Corran tried and failed to keep working on his text document, as he had every night for the past month. He’d hoped this long stay-at-home order would let him finally get a solid start on the (sort of autobiographical) book idea he’d been kicking around in his head for a while. 

So far, it hadn’t worked out that way. They were constantly stumbling over each other, being glared at by Tycho as he tried to conduct online classes or yelled at by Hobbie after yet another disrupted Zoom meeting.

They hadn’t all murdered each other yet, at least. That counted as an accomplishment these days.

Hobbie disappeared into the backyard, his prosthetic leg clanging ominously on the concrete patio. Moments later, a fresh argument floated through the backdoor, growing louder and louder as Hobbie forcibly dragged Wes inside. 

The door slammed shut. The patio light went out. Wes was tossed down onto the couch next to Tycho and Hobbie just glared and glared as he reclaimed his half of the loveseat. 

“It’s not done,” Wes whined. Pouting, he crawled across Tycho so he was fully draped across his and Corran’s laps. The complaints continued but were now muffled by Corran’s leg. 

The detective squirmed, discomforted by vibrations. But there was no point in complaining. The longer they were locked away at home, the more agitated Wes got. He was an extreme extrovert and easily touch starved to boot. He’d started draping himself across whomever sat still the longest about a week earlier and it was only getting worse. 

Corran tapped the back of Wes’s head. “What are you even doing outside?”

“Wasting time,” Hobbie muttered from the love seat. Wes raised his head long enough to shoot Hobbie a wounded look but the blond didn’t bother looking up. He had his phone carefully cradled in his malformed left hand and was flicking rapidly through the glowing screen with his right. 

Offended at being ignored, Wes growled and rolled onto his side. He shifted his weight, squirming and responding to Tycho and Corran’s prodding fingers until they were as comfortable as they could be under the circumstances. 

Wes produced his own phone and Corran suddenly despaired that every single one of them was holding one of the small devices as well as nominally rewatching a terrible superhero movie. 

The TV screen flashed as Wes connected to one of the many devices attached to it. Tycho started laughing again as the first-person view from on top one of Wes’s hot wheel cars began play. The small car tore down a small plastic ramp and followed an impressively convoluted track that took it all around the backyard, through channels that sped the car up, and up and around multiple loops. It was like watching a roller coaster video, only miniature.

There were tunnels crafted from empty soda boxes and small dioramas featuring various superheros lining the track. Wes himself occasionally flitted into view, triggering other cars to run parallel or jump over the original car’s track.

“This is where I’m having trouble,” Wes complained as the car was suddenly going backwards. It bounced off something and diverted to a new track. Another ramp appeared, lifting the car up, up, up-

It crashed, the camera rolling with nausea inducing speed. They got brief glimpses of the sky, grass, dirt, and Wes sprinting up to the car.

The video ended. Wes let out a long, dramatic sigh, staring mournfully at the TV as another, seemingly earlier video of his miniature race track began to play. 

“I just can’t get the landing right on that last jump,” he said mournfully. 

“No, you’ve just been launching cars into the neighbor’s yard,” Hobbie muttered. He glared again. “They put another note on our door saying that if they spotted a raccoon crawling into their yard from our’s again, they’re calling animal control. You know the city is fining people extra for making house calls and that they won’t, you know,  _ find a fucking raccoon nest,  _ which means instead that they’ll just tear into every nook and cranny while being grumpy and annoyed-

“That’s enough,” Wedge interrupted. He looked tired and resigned as he pulled one of the earbuds out of his ears. “Wes, stop launching shit out of the yard. Hobbie, email your boss and tell her you’re taking the rest of the week off. We’re going to take Wes’s cousins up on their very nice offer to pretend to be us so the neighbors don’t notice when we disappear for a few days out into the countryside.”

There was no room to argue in Wedge’s words, nor any tolerance for a fight in his tone of voice. And honestly, the idea of being somewhere besides within their house or the grocery store was too glorious to ignore. 

“It’s ironic,” Tycho began. “We can’t catch this new virus but still have to isolate ourselves like everyone else.”

“Because we need to blend in and make sure we don’t accidently turn into plague rats,” Corran added. They’d all heard the reasoning over a dozen times but that didn’t make it easier to bear. Fortunately, the Janson clan was nothing if not industrious and had over a dozen hastily constructed lean-tos set up for various members of the family to live in for a few weeks out of respect for orders concerning the size of allowed gatherings and how many of them would just need to a chance to go  _ somewhere _ besides home that wouldn’t possibly endanger others. It would be a lot more like camping that Corran strictly preferred, but it would be tolerable.

Wes squirmed again, this time angling his upper body so he could easily look at Wedge. “You’ll message Gavin, right? Have him meet us there? He’ll come back here with us, too, right?”

Wedge only glared in response, which wasn’t an unusual reaction to the sly tone in Wes’s voice. Corran wasn’t entirely certain what Wes was hinting at. There was an equal chance that he knew something they didn’t, that he was groping about in the dark, or just attempting to stir up drama. It was just interesting enough that Corran knew he’d be on alert now, observing and deducing what he could from Wedge and Gavin’s behavior, but he doubted there really was anything to find. 

After all, Wes was bored. His favorite way of alleviating boredom was starting trouble. Still, it could be fun.

The video on the TV reset to the first one Wes had played. The man still sprawled across Corran and Tycho’s laps watched it critically, trying to spot where he’d gone wrong with the final jump. 

Corran shook his head and reactivated his phone. His free hand absently ruffled Wes’s dark curls. The quarantining wasn’t really hurting them, just driving them a bit crazier. They were taking care of each other and that was what mattered. Hobbie looked a bit less gloomy at the prospect of taking a sudden mini-vacation and Wedge’s first glare had subsided as he started texting Gavin. Tycho wouldn’t need to do any online classes again until next week, so they could all just take some time and relax. 

They’d take care of each other. It was what they were good at.


End file.
